The Babygirl trailer immediately piqued my interest; Antonia Banderas, Nicole Kidman, and Harris Dickinson together on the screen? Hello? Unexpected, but yes. The reviews read, “an explosive game of seduction,” (The Hollywood Reporter) describing a film that is “spiky sexy and daring” (The New York Times). It was advertised as a steamy and fresh cinematic breakthrough.
I expected a film centered around female desire, an unapologetic depiction of the liberated woman who embraces her fantasies and has fun with them. Instead, I sat through a very long hour and forty-five minutes of cringe-worthy, shameful, and awkward interactions, both sexual and non-sexual, between the protagonists.
Halina Reijn’s Babygirl follows Romy (Kidman), a CEO with a perfect marriage—notwithstanding the fact, of course, that her husband (Banderas), cannot please her. To fulfill her sexual desires, she has an affair with her intern Samuel (Dickinson), who is thirty years younger than her. Samuel’s appeal for Romy lies in his cocky attitude towards authority and his ability to immediately understand what she wants: to be told what to do. Yet, even with all of this, the relationship itself was never particularly seductive. I didn’t sense any real sexual tension apart from Kidman’s heavy breathing. We end up pitying Romy, who, despite nineteen years of marriage, struggled to communicate her needs to her husband, and ends up clubbing with twenty-year-olds under far too heavy stroboscopic lights. The film flirted with themes of power, control, and pleasure, but it never committed to them.
Reviewers praised Kidman’s brilliance in embodying the clumsiness often accompanying female pleasure on screen as she navigated her unmet desires. However, I didn’t expect to see a film burdened by self-consciousness. I didn’t expect to see Dickinson instruct Kidman to get on her knees in a dingy hotel room as she gasped in shock in 2025. This unconventional exploration of desire has been done before: in 1967 with Belle de Jour, and in a more unsettling way in 1999 with Eyes Wide Shut. I wanted this film to break free from that mold, to own up to something daring.
What does save the movie is Nicole Kidman’s brilliant performance, with facial expressions, delivery, and allure all on point. Harris Dickinson, however, was boyish and aloof. He always seemed two seconds away from breaking character. Maybe that was the intention, but it only highlighted the film’s reluctance to fully embrace the intoxicating chemistry between the two actors. The intimate scenes were either rushed, cut into five-second snippets, or stretched into drawn-out moments where the characters kept asking each other what they wanted. More often than not, Kidman’s character reacted with shock or laughter at the propositions, making us question: why we are even here?
For a film marketed as an erotic thriller (remember, SPIKY! SEXY! DARING!), does this restraint serve a purpose, or is it simply a way to shirk the gravity of the seduction that the audience came for? Babygirl leaves an unconvincing conclusion: after her affair destroys her family, Romy reconciles with her husband, who apparently now satisfies her, while she dreams of her former lover. It’s a resolution that feels contrived. Are we supposed to take from this movie that women are supposed to repress their desires?
A reminder that Hollywood still struggles with portraying candidly free female desire. Babygirl lacks the fire I expected.
